Little man, I have seen you go out of your way all the time to teach your sister. As you can see, I had my old phone on hand and was able to capture this moment. And yes, you two have turned our dining table into a table for arts and crafts and learning time, too.

I love math, I hope that love has passed on to you as well. I love when you go out of your way to stump me with math equations you create. (I win if I can solve them without the use of pencil and paper.)

If a child can learn to think math is fun, or for that matter, education is fun, what is their potential in life? I was proud to see you working with her. I see such great hope in you both.

WASHINGTON (AP) — We know a lot about how babies learn to talk, and youngsters learn to read. Now scientists are unraveling the earliest building blocks of math — and what children know about numbers as they begin first grade seems to play a big role in how well they do everyday calculations later on.

The drive to get every student to take so-called college gateway courses has succeeded, a new federal study finds, but students taking Algebra I and Geometry classes are getting considerably less substance than their course titles would suggest.

Maths was headline news last month, and as is often the case it was for the wrong reasons. According to research done by the Institute of Education, top GCSE pupils in the UK lag two years behind their peers in Asia, and the sentiment of the news coverage was that the UK has a problem that has to be fixed.

Did I seriously just ask if types of learners theories are relevant? Yes, I did. And I’m very curious as to how you answered. Never fear, this is a safe place for you to explore your feelings about types of learners. Your team leader, curriculum specialists, and administrators aren’t looking over your shoulder. Even among our staff here, we have differences of opinion about types of learner theories and how they impact the curriculum that we develop.

Access to successful learning for all students is a powerful equalizer that drives superior educational outcomes. The importance of equal access is credited with much of the academic progress in Finland, a country without private schools or standardized tests. “Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.”1